


On Her Way Home

by thatonedimstar



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 09:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22847854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatonedimstar/pseuds/thatonedimstar
Summary: Valeriya, a Grisha that has been stuck off in Kerch for a year, finally decides that it's time for her to go home. After a bumpy trip back to Ravka, she gets welcomed home by her old friends. But nothing ever goes that easy for her, does it?
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, the first chapter is kind of... off. This was supposed to be a one-shot, but it turns out I like writing this far more than I expected. Might come back and edit that later.

Valeriya hummed softly as she walked through the dark and crooked streets of the Barrel, right in between the East Stave and West Stave. Far away from the gambling halls and taverns of East Stave and the brothels of West Stave, neither places she was particularly fond of. The gambling halls robbed tourists and those who were drunk off of emotions; and the brothels were downright disgusting, most, if not all, their worker's slaves and those who were too desperate to use logic while striking a deal.

She knew she would have to return to the East Stave sooner or later. To go back to the Slat where she had a shoebox room with paper-thin walls waiting for her. If it wasn’t out of the necessity to save up money to pay off her indenture to the Dregs, she would be renting somewhere where she could at least spread her arms out without slapping them on a wall and waking up the person the room beside hers.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like her position in the Dregs. She was trusted enough to be allowed in on the most important and dangerous missions and meetings. The self-proclaimed leader of the Dregs, Kaz Brekker, let her advise him and his crew on what weapons would be most useful in the stupid situations they always got themselves into, and he always took her words seriously.

That in itself meant something since no one truly cared when she was only one of the many newly-recruited Materialki soldiers in the Second Army off in Ravka. Nor did anyone care when she was captured by Fjerdan’s after a full-scale ambush on her and her small scouting team. The other seven members of her team had gotten sold off back to King Nikolai for a large price, but she had already been sold off to a mercher in western Kerch that held more coin than even the crown of Ravka did.

In the end, she’d escaped, leaving no small amount of damage, and once she arrived in Ketterdam, she got captured by slavers once again and sold off to the Menagerie as a Ravkan Grisha beauty, with silky brown hair and soft, glowing skin that using her powers gave her.

Thankfully, Kaz bought out her indenture to employ her in the Dregs as their weapon’s master. It was a hard deal for her to strike, mostly because she didn’t want someone swooping her out of a situation she could’ve eventually gotten out of, but he’s been too enticing with a promise of an endless tab at the Crow’s Club and a safe place to sleep.

Now, she had to admit it was one of the smartest decisions she’d made. She only had about a year left of her indenture and once it was over and done with, she was going back to Ravka to serve her king and country. She was no use over here in Kerch.

“Valeriya,” a stone-hard voice called. She looked over her shoulder to look at the beginnings of a figure emerging from the heavy mist that had settled over the Barrel. It was Kaz, limping as he had his cane limply in one hand. “It’s broken,” he said as explanation, waving the heavy weight of it in the air as he approached.

“What the hell did you do?” she asked, exasperated. The main stick was cracked right down the center, the end of it broken right off. She couldn’t imagine what it would’ve taken to break it like that. Gunfire, for sure. But what else? 

“It’s more of what the bouncer  _ didn’t _ do,” he said, holding the cane out to her. She grabbed it and rested her hand on the crow’s head handle, letting her magic flow into it. With a yank, the head came off. She slipped it into her pocket as she continued to examine the stick.

“Saints,” She lifted it to line up with her eye so she could look down the length of it, and raised her eyebrows. “You  _ bent  _ it. What was the bouncer made of? Steel?” The use of was, was intentional. There was no way anyone could live through the damage this had dealt.

“His muscles were as hard as it,” he said, a smirk lifting the corner of his lips. 

“This would’ve even killed the Darkling,” she said unbelievingly, looking over it once more before she continued down the streets toward the Slat, Kaz trailing beside her, his limp heavy without his cane to rest upon.

“Of course, it would. Your little Santka Alina needed someway to lay that bastard to rest.” Kaz said in a joking tone, and all she wanted to do was turn and throttle him with his own cane. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d tried it.

“I will blind you, Brekker. Burn your eyes out of your sockets, if you talk about Alina like that.” Kaz snorted. He didn’t believe that she was a Sun Summoner, too, one of the many that had been converted that way day on the Fold, and she didn’t want to prove him wrong quite yet. She wanted to use it when it would eat his ass the most. “She made something out of nothing. She was no saint, just a Grisha who got dealt an ugly card.”

“Better not tell that to Inej. She’ll use her Sankta Alina blade and bury it right in your back.” He said, and she sighed. She didn’t doubt it, and that was half of the reason why she never spoke about Alina, her old friend, around Inej. Or any other member of the Dregs, for that matter. She knew that unless she wanted to summon that sun, no one would believe her, and she couldn’t find enough fire in her to prove them wrong.

“I nearly died protecting her, I’ll gladly do it again.” She said simply as they entered the Slat, both of them giving the two bouncers a quick nod. 

The mood shifted quickly once they stepped in. People, thugs and thieves alike, came up to Kaz and started talking to him, bringing up anything as a topic to hold his attention: “Heard one of your bouncers at the Crow Club is dead.” “Oh, wow, look at how wrecked your cane is. Who did you kill?” And Valeriya’s personal favorite, “Finally find someone’s ass to stick your cane up?” 

A couple even gave her good luck with trying to fix it. They didn’t know she was Materialki, and she was grateful for it, so she took it grandly with quick smiles and witty responses.

Kaz broke away from the crowd and gestured for Valeriya to follow him. Jesper emerged from the crowd after he waved him over, as well, and came up beside her, looking down at the cane with a raised eyebrow as they started up the old stairs, which was slow-going without Kaz having his cane.

“How long will it take to fix it?” Jesper asked, eyeing the broken shaft of the cane.

“A bit,” she said, running her hand along the heavy wood of the staff. Her magic surged as it begged to be allowed to work and mend the wood and remnants of iron in it and push it together. She wouldn’t be fixing it out here, nor would she fix it any time tonight. 

Being a Grisha in Kerch was dangerous, and deadly in Ketterdam. If someone saw Kaz walking around in the morning with a completely patched cane, many would suspect he had a Materialki working for him and she didn’t want to be hunted down and sold into slavery for it.

She had a spare prototype for the cane that looked normal, even cheap, but would be close enough to his old one that he wouldn’t feel bare. He would have his favorite cane back within a week, as not to raise suspicion. And if he got mad at her about the long wait, she would tell him to find another Materialki that would be fine with exposing themselves in the worst part of the city in god-damned Kerch. 

She was the best around and unless he wanted to ship it off to David back at the Little Palace in Ravka and he would have it all done up within three days. But Ravka was a two-day trip away, and David no doubt had much better, much more interesting projects he would rather work on.

“I’ll be up in a sec,” she said and split off to enter in her small, cold room. 

As soon as she entered the temperature dropped by what felt like ten degrees, and she didn’t mind it. She had traded for it with another member of the Dregs because she worked and slept better in the cold. It ended up being for the better since she did most, if not all, her work in her room.

She threw the broken cane on her bed followed by the metal crow’s head before she knelt down and pulled out the crate from under her bed. After brushing off a coat of dust, she flipped open the heavy lid and looked over the contents.

Little knick-knacks filled it, from failed experiments to successful inventions. In one corner of the box sat a pair of black gloves fitted with mirrors, one of the items David had created for Alina back at the Little Palace. She’d asked him for a pair before she left for her scouting mission and he’d happily made up a pair for her. It was one of the only belongings she had left, and she was only able to keep it for the fact that it was assumed it was one of her creations and the slavers used it as a way to show her talent and ability.

She reached the bottom of the chest and pulled out the smooth dark-wood cane. As she cradled in her lap, she looked down at her  _ very _ old and tattered purple  _ kefta _ covered in chars and tears, gray embroidered on the sleeves and hems. She’d worn it on the Fold during the Civil War and had refused to part with it, even when they gave her her new  _ kefta _ that sat beside the old one in pristine condition. The material was a sleek blue of the Etherealki and the golden embroidery of the hems and designs labeling her as a Sun Summoner. 

She quickly snapped closed the trunk and pushed it back under the bed and stood with the help of the cane. Maybe she would make her own cane. She wouldn’t mind telling the story, drunk and half out of her mind, of how she killed this large burly man with this delicate cane decorated with delicate flower engravings.

Once she was out in the hall, she raised her eyebrows in surprise to see Jesper standing there leaning against the rickety post at the bottom of the stairs. He was looking over one of his pistols, tilting his head and frowning slightly as he looked at a small scratch on the side of it. She knew he would fix it later tonight.

He looked up at her and slipped his gun back into its holster. “He wanted to speak with Inej alone for a moment.”

She clicked her tongue and walked right past him and started up the stairs. Jesper sighed as he followed after her. There was no use trying to tell her not to do something. Maybe it was her facing death many, many times, or maybe it was because she’d helped fight and kill the Darkling then got granted magic from a Saint, but she wouldn’t wait up for anyone.

With the head of the cane, she used it to knock at the door of the third floor. After a moment, the door opened to reveal Kaz Brekker. He reached out and pulled the cane from her hand and turned back into further back into his office. 

Jesper pushed passed her and she resisted the urge to reach out and pull him back so she could enter first. But she ignored that and went into the office, pushing the door closed behind her.

“What do you want? I have things to get back to.” She said and wasn’t completely lying. Her room needed cleaning. Badly.

Kaz sighed as he sat down behind his desk, leaning back in the comfortable-looking leather seat. “I need you to get into Os Alta for me.”

She snorted and Jesper’s eyes jumped to her, but Inej stayed quiet from where she stood beside Kaz, hands resting a breath away from her daggers. Valeriya leaned up against the door and crossed her arms across her chest.

“Like hell,” she blurted. “The day I let you near Os Alta is the day Sankta Alina rises from the dead.”

Kaz smirked. “I just want to make a deal with the King, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” she near-shouted before she broke out into a laugh. “Why don’t I just bundle you up in some nice  _ kefta _ and lead you right to the Little Palace?”

“I would love that,” Kaz said, grinning. 

She took a deep breath and forced her eyes shut. The conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere unless she did something.

“ _ Why _ do you want to make a deal with the king?” she asked, opening her eyes. She might as well hear him out.

“I would love to free all of the Grisha wrongly employed here in Ketterdam. For a large sum of money, of course,” he said and she wanted to wipe that crazed grin off of his face. Jesper raised his eyebrows as he looked between them. He knew things were going unsaid, but he wouldn’t dig. Everyone in the Dregs had their secrets.

“You would get better money by handing me over, but you knew that already, didn’t you?” she asked, tilting her head slightly. He just smiled.

Jesper couldn’t hold back anymore. He turned to Valeriya and said, “You’re Grisha,” His mouth hung open with surprise and she simply nodded.

“So are you, now shush,” she said, waving him off as she looked at Kaz. Jesper stood there, his cheeks blazing red, his mouth opening and closing.

“I hand you over, get money, free dozens of Grisha, get money,”

“How about I go back to the Little Palace and tell them you’ve kept me captive for the last year? Who will they believe then?” she barked back.

“You still owe Haskell hundreds of thousands,” Kaz said.

“I’ll burn this place down, then he’ll see how much I care about a stupid indenture.”

Jesper whispered, “Inferni?” 

“No, guess again,” she said while staring down Kaz. He stared right back at her with his unforgiving gaze.

“Alkemi?” Jesper guessed again.

“No, but you’re getting closer.”

“Durast?”

“ _ Ding ding _ , you win,” she said and sucked in a breath. “I’m leaving. Send my regards to Per Haskell and tell him to expect the might of the Second Army banging at his door.”

As she turned and left down the stairs, she heard Inej’s dry laugh followed by, “Well, that backfired,” before Jesper slammed shut the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Mist hung lowly over the docks, casting the top of the Lid in eerie silence as the beginning flashes of dawn broke over the horizon. The distant heckles and shouts of sailors helped set the mood for the rest of the long, long day; a mood that Valeriya wasn’t sure was a good one. The old, worn crate in her hands had her arms stinging with the full, heavy weight of it, and she cursed herself for not working out more. 

She guessed that if she wanted, she could’ve made something easily to make it lighter and more comfortable to carry, but she wanted to get out of the Slat—and the rest of Ketterdam and the whole of Saints-damned Kerch—as soon as she could. She didn’t want anyone else coming and knocking at her door begging for her to stay, saying that Kaz wouldn’t be able to make it without her, though she knew they were more worried about the fact that she would indeed bring the might of the Second Army banging at their doors.

Well, it had, for the most part, only been Jesper. He’d been pacing in front of her door, stepping on every possible creaking floorboard, knocking every thirty minutes, begging her to come out of her room for a cup of brandy, or bergamot tea (he seemed to think that would attract her more since it was her favorite) so that they could speak. He even suggested in a desperate moment that they have Kaz sweeten the deal: start giving her pay, rent her a nice apartment in a good, peaceful part of Ketterdam. But she hadn’t even opened the door to hear him out. The guilt of ignoring her closest friend had latched onto her coiling gut, wrenching it and making her sick.

The leather souls of her boots slapped up against the uneven stones beneath her, the sound like a death-knell in her mind. She missed her home and the Little Palace and the whole of Os Alta in its sparkling splendor, but she would also miss Ketterdam and its lesser-known streets full of crooks and beggars. They had become her friends and her confidants, and now she was leaving them behind like they were crumbs left to be brushed away at the end of a full, hearty meal.

A golden-gilded carriage came crashing past her, wheels rattling loudly, and she jumped to the side, barely missing it as it breezed past. A snap of wind whirled up in its wake, snatching the wisps of her ruddy-red hair and pulling it loose from the tight, coiled braid she had it in. She didn’t have enough time to stop and fix it like her hands twitched to do.

Then she cursed soundly at herself for even worrying about it. She was going to be on a ship full of sailors who probably couldn’t care less if they had mud smeared all across their face, let alone if a small, wispy strand of hair came loose from a tightly done braid. Though she was a woman—a young, dainty-looking woman who took pride in every aspect of her appearance, so she doubted even the rational part of her mind would override her deep-rooted need to look like a perfect, darling lady.

“Where you go, miss?” a young man asked in broken Kerch, and she instantly picked up on his Ravkan accent. He wore a suit that looked far too fine for his surroundings, his smile welcoming and kind. 

She slowly dropped the heavy crate onto the rough wooden dock beneath her feet, the contents of it shifting in a way she wasn’t sure she liked. She made a mental note to go through and make sure she had no combustible items near each other once he was safely on board. Reaching into her cloak, she found one of the hidden pockets she’d sewn in and wrapped her fingers around a scroll of new, white parchment and held it out to the young man.

He took it and unraveled the red silk ribbon, unfurling the letter and the reading the messy scrawl of writing on it that declared she’d bought passage on a ship heading to Ivets in Western Ravka. Thankfully for him, the unruly writing was in Ravkan for the purely selfish reason that the captain of the ship she was about to board was from Caryeva and was so stuck in his ways he refused to conform to his Kerch business partners and learn their language.

“Come,” the man said, bending down to pick up her crate, grunting at the weight of it. He cast her a skeptical look, no doubt wondering how someone as skinny as her could lift something that heavy. She wanted to tell him it was all in the arms, but didn’t have enough bite to. She was leaving behind some of her best friends, after all.

He led her down the dock of Fourth Harbor, his steps easily missing the stray piles of frayed rope and nets that no one had cared to clean up yet. It was only dawn, it didn’t seem like there would be much foot traffic this soon, so she didn’t feel the need to bend down and clean it up herself.

“Where are you from?” she asked in Ravkan, causing the man to falter in his steps slightly. She supposed he wouldn’t have expected her to speak Ravkan, or at least he now didn’t expect her to speak Kerch in any fluent matter. Looks could be very deceiving, that much she’d learned when facing Zoya Nazyalensky, Genya Safin, and David Kostyk. 

“Balakirev, miss,” he answered, his accent paired with his native language far less jarring to the ear. “You?”

“A small estate South of Adena,” Valeriya said, nearly choking on the words in an effort to not let the dark, clawing thoughts that came with the memory of her home and all who had lived there resurface. Small was an understatement. It was a stunning, glittering cage full of the horrid practices of tight-lacing corsets and eating too-small meals. 

“You must’ve lived on the Avetsya’s grounds!” he exclaimed, his excitement reaching its cold hands into her soul and running fingers along the darkest parts, getting ready to pluck out memories like a file in a filing cabinet and force her to wait sedentary while he recounted them in his cheerful voice. “I heard they hold grand feasts multiple times a week. I can’t imagine how much money they must have to be able to spend so frivolously.”

They don’t have that much free money, she wanted to say. They just didn’t spend much money on food outside of those grand meals, only nibbling on enough to keep their stomachs from growling in hunger. It would be impolite for a lady to emit such a sound, they say.

Before she had to conjure up some response that wouldn’t end up in her voice shaking, a smooth, hard as stone voice called out to her, her name ringing out like a beacon in the dark. She had no idea if she should be grateful for it yet, but had the creeping idea that by the end of the conversation she would’ve much rather dredged up another rotting memory than face the small gathering of teenagers behind her.

“Val,” Kaz’s voice came once again and she restrained her need to groan, instead giving the young man a quick dip of her head, sending him scuttling the rest of the way down the dock. “Couldn’t you have at least gone through Fifth Harbor? Give me one last bit of business before you tear my life apart.” The words were aimed well, hitting its mark and furrowing its grasp in deep in her heart, tightening its grasp until it ached.

“Sorry,” she said, turning to face her friends. Kaz Brekker, Jesper Fahey, Wylan Van Eck, and Nina Zenik, another Grisha here in Ketterdam. Jesper was watching her, his hands a breath away from his pistols. The realization of their attack-ready positions threatened to steal her breath. “The only ships heading out of there this morning are going to Shu Han and Fjerda. Both places I would much rather not go to”

“I see,” Kaz murmured, tapping his cane on the wooden planks beneath him. The hollow,  _ thud, thud, thud, _ sound was like a warning chant bubbling and coursing through her blood. She understood this for what it was: they were giving her a chance to return or else they would kill her. There was too much of a risk to letter her go back to Ravka. Home.

So, she grabbed on her last resource and said, “I sent a letter last night to Os Alta. I’m sure my king would be very devastated if he learned I was killed when I was just about to board a ship and head home.”

Jesper released a breath, his arms going slack at his side, no longer poised to grab onto his pistols and fire at her at the faintest signal from his leader. At least he was aware that there was no way Kaz could kill her now without getting into far more trouble than he would’ve if he just let her go back to Ravka.

“I changed my mind,” she said softly, turning and continuing down the dock, her steps sounding loudly. Soon, she heard Wylan’s and Nina’s steps following her. She knew that Kaz and Jesper were following, too, but they were just keeping their steps light and stealthy. “I’m not going to turn any of you in. Sentencing my friends to death doesn’t seem like an exactly nice thing to do.”

“In that case,” Kaz said, and she internally rolled her eyes, the hope that they would leave her alone after that admission crumbling and cracking under his words, “we’ll come with you. Inej is already on the ship awaiting our arrival.”

Valeriya stopped dead in her tracks and spun around, her heavy woolen cloak and loose skirt snapping around her legs. Her serene expression broke and fell apart, letting her complete and utter fury flash through her normally carefully schooled face. Her eyebrows drew together and her lips turned down into a deep frown. Surprise and delight flashed across Kaz’s face, making her frown deepen even farther before she snapped her facade up once again.

“Good,” she said, the hardness of her voice betraying the gentle set of her face. She continued, steadying her voice and adding her normal, calm lilt to it, “You’ll get to see King Nikolai and maybe strike that deal you wanted to make.”

Her green eyes drifted over to Nina, seeing the way she gave Valeriya a once-over. Valeriya had only seen the girl a handful of times back at the Little Palace and only in passing. When they met here in Ketterdam at the Crow’s Club, they had made a silent agreement with each other to not bring up their past. Or, more importantly, to not talk about Valeriya’s past and who she really was. Because here, everyone knew her as Valeriya Notserev. She wasn’t even sure Kaz knew her actual name, though she wouldn’t put it past him if he did. That man knew everything.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” she asked, gesturing behind her. She raised an eyebrow, waiting until Kaz spurred into movement, the others begrudgingly following along, for her to turn around fully. 

Her heart was pounding in her chest, pushing and pushing up against her ribcage until she thought it would burst open and her heart would smash down onto the ground with a squishing thud. That would be quite a gruesome show, but it would probably be better than being stuck on a ship with people who had been able to break into the  _ Ice Court _ successfully. It would be a miracle if she came out completely unscathed.

She led them to the plank of wood that stretched up to the deck of the ship where her crate waits, the young man hovering by it, watching everyone who walked close and giving them a long, withering glare that made them rush past without another look down at the crate. It seemed he took his job very, very seriously.

A burly man waits for them at the bottom, looking over the group with harsh scrutiny. His eyes dipped down to the crumpled piece of parchment in his hands and the messy scrawling on it. She put on her most gentle, feminine smile and dropped her chin in a slight show of respect, though she didn’t tear her warm, kind eyes away from his hard and unfeeling ones.

“Me and my wards, sir,” she said, her voice taking on a cheery tone. She was only four years older than them, but, at the Little Palace, she’d seen someone take on a ward that was only a month or two younger than them. 

He nodded, skeptically eying the small group of misfits behind her. “And why would you and your wards be heading to Ravka on an early Thursday morning, Miss Avetsya?” The tone he used on her name was sure to be an insult, but she didn’t care. She hated her family name, too.

It took every bit of her to not wince at the use of her surname. She’d had to shimmy her way into the manifest, using her charm and the flash of her name in order to be granted passage. She had no idea how Kaz had done it, but she guessed there was a reason why he had climbed the ranks of the Dregs so quickly.

“The king’s sent me a letter, beckoning me to return to court with the utmost haste.” She said, picking up on the most courtly words she could possibly use. He wanted to see her as a very rich man’s daughter, so she will be. She is no fake, even if she would rather dump her family name than ever use it. “And I’m afraid I’m stuck with my darling wards until I can get a letter out to their dear Lady Mother traveling off in Novyi Zem.”

The man’s eyes narrowed, scanning them. He was  _ really _ trying hard to find an issue with it all. “They don’t look anything alike,” he said, a victorious smile on his lips as if he was declaring to the world that he’d just solved the trickiest of riddles.

“Ah,” she breathed, leaning in and cupping a black-lace gloved hand around her mouth to keep her hushed words between the two of them, though she knew the rest of them heard. “Please, kind sir, do not remind them. Their mother has quite the history of spiriting men away for clandestine meetings in her bedchambers. Often lasting until the very wee hours of the morning.” She laughed, the softest bubble of noise. “Still to this day she trollops around at the ripe age of forty-seven, acting like she’s in the midst of her early adulthood.” She clucked her tongue in distaste, holding a hand to her chest to add to the dramatics. 

His face fell, realizing there was no secret for him to route out but this idle chatter of gossip that was best shared around a pot of tea. He stepped aside and gestured impatiently with one of his hands, grumbling something too low to hear under his breath, his eyes stuck on the manifest.

Her boots fell on the plank, followed by the fall of Nina’s feet as she hurried after Valeriya. They reached the deck and she thanked the young man for his assistance, handing him a couple of kruge, earning a wide grin from him before he quickly left under the hard eye of a crew member.

She leaned down and hefted the crate into her arms, ignoring her “wards” who now hovered behind her, giving her long, confused glares. Never, in the year she’d known them, had she shown that much of her court-trained side. She normally shied away from it, not wanting her memories to rise and choke her life and breath out of her, but she was already in deep enough, so why not go deeper?

“We have a separate room set up for you and your female wards,” one of the sailors said, walking up to her. He didn’t even offer to take the crate, but instead turned on his heel and led her down into the belly of the ship, Nina following quickly after. 

The strong, overwhelming scent of herbs and tea leaves stung her nose as they passed by towering wooden boxes. Cushions were wedged on top of them, covered in threadbare blankets and pillows that looked like they were filled with hay. Hammocks hung in other places, some covered in blankets, others not. In one there was even a small gathering of books.

Just when the beginnings of a headache started to pound at her temple, the man led them to an old wooden door near the end of the ship, pushing a door open. Valeriya stepped into the delightfully chilly room, a small porthole window the only light source other than the two licks of flame blinking and flashing inside old, rusting oil lamps set on top of a wooden side-table.

There were three beds in total: a crooked, broken-looking cot with a soft-looking stack of fur blankets atop it. There was a bed mirrored on the other side of the room, but this one was lacking the luxurious furs, instead traded for a threadbare blanket that looked far too itchy and uncomfortable to actually use. A hammock hangs above it, no blankets or pillows adorned it, save for the petite woman lounging in it: Inej, who looked at them like how a cat may look at a mouse it was just about to jump on.

“The rich lady gets the warm bed,” the man said, not staying to see if they were fine, turning and walking back through the stacks of boxes. 

Valeriya groaned, carefully dropping the crate to the ground as to not disturb any of the items in it, trying not to notice the long, inquisitive look Inej sent her. Inej was slowly twirling one of her blades with mild interest, the gleaming metal sending flashes of light around the room.

“The rich lady would not like to be called the rich lady,” Valeriya grumbled to herself, using her feet to nudge the crate under the bed, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath the weight.

“But you are a rich lady?” Inej asked, her voice nearly silent against the lapping of the waves against the hull of the ship. She turned and flopped onto the bed, her years of court training the only thing that kept her from falling back onto the bed. Nina was still hovering by the doorway, her green eyes boring into Valeriya. 

“Sorta,” Nina answered for her, saying the words slowly, waiting to see if Valeriya was going to interrupt. She wasn’t. There was no reason to keep her identity hidden anymore. She was heading home. “She comes from one of the richest families in Ravka. Her family has even more money than the crown, though that’s not a hard feat after everything that happened with the Civil War.”

Valeriya nodded in a slight dip of her chin, swallowing tightly. Sweat prickled the back of her neck, the cool, tickling breeze snaking its way through the large crack in the porthole window doing nothing to settle the bile rising in her throat.

“None of that matters when you’re enlisted, though,” Valeriya said simply, her controlled features and voice breaking apart as she shifted her focus to push down the emotions rising and clawing up her throat. 

She reached down and grabbed onto the metal handles of the crate, pulling it out from under the bed. With as much grace as the action allowed, she got up and settled onto the ground in front of the wooden box. She leaned her back against the hard wood of the bed, using the feeling to anchor her to this moment. The coldness radiating from the floor reached up through the layers of her skirt, wending through her bones and soothing her nausea.

“Enlisted is a kind way of explaining what happened to you,” Nina said, traces of laughter in her voice, and Valeriya’s eyes snapped to her. She didn’t even try to hide the burning fury in her eyes and flaring across her face, warning her not to say another word. Nina instantly paled, faltering a step back. 

There was a reason why Valeriya had risen in the ranks of the Second Army ao quickly, and it wasn’t just because of how much of a smooth-talker she was.

“Right…” Nina trailed off, taking a step back. “I’m going to see what food they have here.” She then turned around and walked away swiftly, her light brown hair trailing behind her in a stream. Valeriya leaned over and pushed the door closed, the hinges sounding loudly. She got up on her knees to turn the lock closed before she relaxed back onto the ground.

Inej stopped twirling her blade and sheathed it, giving Valeriya an unsettling glance before she slumped down in her hammock and closed her eyes. She pulled the hood of a rich black cloak over her eyes, sighing deeply as she shifted into a more comfortable position.

Valeriya popped open the lid of the crate, dunking her hand into its contents and fishing out random items. She started working, allowing her magic to course through her blood and bones as she pieced together items and tinkered on the old ones. Soon, Inej started to blend into the shadows, becoming nothing but another wisp of hardly-there movement in the cramped space.


End file.
